Random Image Block

The Random Image Block is a small plugin that will display a random image from your native WordPress photo galley or in-beaded images.

This widget will display the thumbnail of the random image, the “caption” and the images parent posts name. You may show all pictures on your site, or limit the selection to a single category if you wish. Once installed on your site, it will fully conform to the current theme. The Widgets title is also fully configurable. Random Image Widget was designed with full internationalization in mind and can be fully translated (Any help on this would be appreciated). As of Version 0.3 this plugin works out of the box without any configuraion (assuming you have pictures on your site).

The Random Image Block plugin works with WordPress 3.0+ in both single and multi site modes. As a Site Admin, you may activate this plugin across all the sites on your install.

This Plugin is fully translated into the following languages:

Arabic

Czech

Finnish

French

Danish

Dutch

German

Indonesian

Italian

Portuguese

Russian

Spanish

If you would like to help translating this plugin, or you see a problem with the current translation, please see my Translation page, and/or contact me.

Secondary Option

Extract the zip file and copy the folder “random-image-block” into the “wp-content/plugins/” directory in your WordPress installation.

Activate the plugin from your Dashboard by going to Plugins -> Installed page.

Screen Shots

The Random Image Block on the front page, conforming to the current theme.

The Wiget Admin page for the Random Image Block.

FAQ

Q. Q: May I have more the one image on my sidebar?A. A: Sure, just add a second or third widget to the sidebar, but you can’t do it from within this widget.

Q. Q: May I display more then one category at once?A. A: No, you may only display a single category per widget

Q. Q: I have no picture in my sidebar, the widget doesn’t work!A. A: Make sure the category you have selected has pictures in it, if it doesn’t, nothing will be displayed.

Q. Q: Will this plugin work with WP Super Cache enabled?A. A: Unfortunately, no. WP Super Cache caches all php built html pages for quicker page loads. Since the Random Image Block is built directly into the html page, with WP Super Cache enabled, you will see the same random image on the same page until the cache refreshes. Each page will still have a diffrent image, but they will not update for each page refresh. Currently there is no work around.

Hi Mate, don’t suppose there is any chance of getting a shortcode for this? It would be awesome if you could drop this into pages, for example a shortcode for the image with options for image size (small, med, large as per media manager). Some sites would like this to be a main feature on a page rather than just a small part of the sidebar.

It would be great if you could specify the image size in the widget options.

I’m testing the plugin, and I get an occasional error message that shows instead of an image, when refreshing the page (in Chrome, IE and FF):
Fatal error: Cannot use string offset as an array in /wp-content/plugins/random-image-block/random-image-block.php on line 86

The plugin uses the thumbnail image from your media settings. You can change your thumbnail size, or you may modify the plugin to use a different image base, but it can not be changed out of the box as it is now.

Hi, another issue I am having. It’s showing photos that are not associated with any posts, like my web design photos like banners etc. I thought it would only look at images associate with a post? Am I missing a setting?